Underwater
by Amehi
Summary: Love blossomed in her chest — a gentle, pure bud that, with time, would clog up her lungs to death.


Love blossomed in her chest — a gentle, pure bud that, with time, would clog up her lungs to death.

Uraraka knew what losing meant.

She had, indeed, lost many times in her life. Battles, arguments, games, people. _No wisdom comes without a failure_, she would tell the children on television. Every flaw was an opportunity to grow stronger and Uraraka had the cheerfulness to embrace the challenge.

She hated to acknowledge a lost war, though.

She could trip on the steps up, but eventually her efforts would break through and help her improve. The flaws were there to be overcome, after all. There was no meaning to the challenge if she couldn't learn something from it.

But this one only told her one message, full set with neon lights and arrows pointing in that direction:

_Give up._

There was no meaning to engaging in something foolish, a battle she would never win, despite her efforts, despite every tear she dropped because of it. Although, well, she didn't sign up for that.

It was inevitable.

.

.

Ochako and Tsuyu knew each other for nine years now. Both young adults, their heroine careers skyrocketed to the point they had to decline interviews to have time to sleep. Uraraka couldn't deny she was happy: that was what she had dreamed of, after all. The money flooded her bank account and her family would face monetary problems no more. Also, she had learned with time the satisfaction of providing for the society, saving people, bringing peace. Her job was her passion in every aspect of it.

Tsuyu was her best friend — they shared an apartment, a cute chubby cat and every painful memory and gentle advice. Tsuyu was there for her when she had mourned Deku's loss, the long months she stayed home, plagued by the nightmares, by the image of her friend covered in blood, and couldn't bring herself to eat, to go outside, to have fun. It was Tsuyu who camped beside her bed, making sure she was eating properly, taking care of herself. It was Tsuyu who combed her hair, pulled her to watch something on TV, cooked her favorite dishes.

Asui held her hand and brought her up, filling Uraraka with the desire to live again. It was Tsuyu, also, who helped her get back on the hero job, face the fear, have faith again.

Ochako held her close to her heart.

As time passed, they grew closer and closer, and every reminder of each other was endearing. Ochako would think about her every day, ruffling the hair of every child with Froppy's stylish backpack and collecting the themed trinkets galore. Their apartment was a cozy mixture of Uravity's pink and black and Froppy's green.

She would trust Tsuyu with anything and she thought, deep in her chest, that Tsuyu did exactly the same.

It was a shock, then, that rainy summer night she came back to the house to discover she was wrong.

It was dark and the storm was heavy. The thunders echoed outside with every drop, reverberating in their building block as Ochako boarded the elevator, praying for it not to get stuck somewhere between the first floor and the floor of her apartment, like last time. She could (probably should) take the stairs, but it meant going around twelve floors, and, honestly, Uraraka and her labyrinthitis were too old for this stuff.

So, yeah, she chose the elevator.

The signing yellow light of the panel continued on all the way to her floor, and the doors opened up with a _plin_. Sighing in relief, Uravity opened her apartment door, pulling her jacket out as she entered.

The lights of the living room were on, but there was no signal of Tsuyu whatsoever, except for the television broadcasting the news and Cheese mewling happily over the brown couch. Uraraka proceeded, taking her shoes off and walking to the sofa, scratching the cat behind his ear and picking on the news.

It was talking about an explosion caused by the clash of a villain with her friend, Jirou. Various angles were provided at the same time as the reporters discussed the event. Pouting, Ochako looked around, noticing the lights on in the corridor to their rooms.

"Tsuyu-chan?" she called out, leaving Cheese to his nap and proceeding through the corridor. The rain was so loud it was almost like it was raining inside the building. The door of Tsuyu's room was opened, but the light was off, and a gentle luminosity came from her room's bathroom. Frowning, Ochako called her again, with no response.

She decided to go in. What could go wrong after all? She and Tsuyu shared everything, and the brunette knew her room like the back of her hand. It was easy to avoid the furniture on the way, but, when she was a pair of steps from the door, she finally heard Tsuyu.

She was coughing. Not the dry, painful cough of a cold, but a wet one. One that brought memories back…

One step. One hesitant step and she could remember the red in Midoriya's fingers, soaking his white gloves. One step and she could remember his hollow scared eyes as he looked up at her.

Another step.

She stopped by the doorframe.

Tsuyu was hunched over the sink, one pale, trembling hand holding the edge of the marble while the other sunk under the water of the opened faucet. Asui was breathing heavily, the dark locks framing her shoulders and making her look even smaller and paler.

"Tsuyu-chan?"

Tsuyu's head snapped in her direction in lightning speed.

Her eyes were a pair of deep ebony circles, framed by thick, wet eyelashes. Her pink lips were but a slightly livelier hue of white, making the small, lilac petal hanging out all the more noticeable.

"That… What is…"

She could breathe again.

Tsuyu was okay and her strange glimpses of Deku had been triggered by nothing. Nothing _now_, at least.

"Is that a petal?" Uraraka managed to ask, pointing to her face. Tsuyu turned around to look at the mirror, pushing the petal away as soon as she identified it. Then, as the brunette prepared another question, she coughed again.

Ochako approached quickly, holding her shoulders as Tsuyu's body trembled. Her skin was clammy, the hair sticking to the sweat, as she threw up more petals in the sink. The brunette watched, astonished, as the small lilac pieces cogged up the drain, the realization coming up in a painful memory.

_Hanahaki, the disease of love_, Mina had said, sighing on the couch as she went through the Romeo and Juliet script book. Yaoyorozu, standing by one of the kitchen tables, raised her eyebrows in surprise. _They make it sound so painful in the book._

_It's death_, the raven had said in return. _The death of a person is painful. It's sad._

_So sad._ They had _no idea_ at the time.

Ochako and Tsuyu split up one hour later.

Asui hadn't said anything about the disease, and she opted to say nothing this time too, as her door closed, cutting Uraraka out — of her room, of her feelings.

They didn't talk about it afterwards.

.

.

They talked about it afterwards.

Precisely, one week after.

Ochako was not sure of who needed the time. She would constantly lie to herself as she pulled through the week on autopilot: yeah, she was just giving Tsuyu some time, some space to think things through.

She was plagued the whole time.

Nightmares of death, of the blood-freezing despair filled her nights. Maybe, she thought to herself, _maybe_ Tsuyu locked her out because she could see the terror in her eyes that night. When, in spite of Tsuyu being the one suffering, Uraraka was the helpless weakling.

Tsuyu always saved her. She was there for every tumble, every scratch, every cry.

What could Uraraka ever do for her in return? When most needed, she could just stutter her way out of the room, out of Tsuyu's life…

One week after, when she came back to the apartment after her patrol, body tired, having ignored her lunch yet again, it was raining.

This time, Tsuyu was sitting at the couch, scratching Cheese's ear and watching a show on Netflix. Uraraka stopped by the door, frozen in place. She felt like her heartbeat was as loud as the sirens of the ambulance down on the streets. Beating, churning, insecure, asking for her to turn around, to _not face_ it.

She breathed deeply, feeling her eyes stinging as she pulled her shoes out and silently walked around the couch, sitting by the other side of their cat. Breath in, breath out. She could do it. She could be there.

If she ran away, maybe Tsuyu wouldn't give her another opening. Maybe that was the only time, and Uraraka had to be strong.

Slowly, as if emerging from underwater, the buzzing of the program and Cheese's purring filled her ears.

"It's been a pair of months now."

"W-what?" turning around, she could see that Tsuyu was still facing the television, the voice gentle. She could be talking about the rainy season, as far as Uraraka was concerned.

"It's been a pair of months since the petals started to come out."

"Oh."

_Hanahaki_, the silent bloom of a love flower inside one's lungs. Ochako made her research in the last few days, during her sleepless nights, praying it would calm her down. Why even bother trying, though? It was scary.

An unrequited love was required for the flowers to bloom. They would grow as would the love, painful emotionally as much as it would be physically, and the person would soon die suffocated in their own love. What a cruel irony.

It meant two things.

The first one was that Tsuyu's life was endangered by her feelings, and Uraraka could do nothing about it.

The second one was that her best friend was in love with someone and hadn't told her.

Both hurt Uraraka deeply.

She shouldn't expect Tsuyu to open up to her the same way she did. It was unfair — just because _she_ was willing to share her feelings and seek for help, it didn't mean the others would. Maybe Tsuyu wasn't comfortable enough to say it. Speaking of which, she could never remember a time in which the frog heroine told her about a crush.

"It's not too bad yet…" Tsuyu whispered, getting Uraraka out of her thoughts. The brunette wanted to reach for her hand, squeeze it reassuringly, but the recent events made her cautious, hyperaware of every approach she took. "It hurts… It's slowly getting on the way of my missions and patrols."

Her voice cracked in the next one:

"Ochako-chan…" obsidian irises met Uraraka's chocolate eyes, her skin a gentle yellow shade caused by the light. She looked paper thin, flimsy, and tears dripped slowly down her cheekbones. "I don't wanna die."

"_You don't have to,_" she replied, urged, moving closer and holding her hand. Cheese meowed angrily between them, jumping out of the sofa. Tsuyu squeezed Uraraka's hand in return, and her skin was so, so cold. "_You don't have to, Tsuyu-chan._"

"I don't know," the frog heroine confessed, the voice clogged. Could it be petals? Or maybe a lump, the same one clogging Uraraka's right now as her chest hurt? "I can't forget, Ochako-chan. I can't let go."

"_Why?_"

Asui pulled closer, leaning her head over Ochako's shoulder and breathing deeply, but never answered. Uravity raised one hand, combing the ebony locks, filling her lungs with the scent of Tsuyu's shampoo.

She had to give Tsuyu time.

Time to recover from her heartbreak.

.

.

_Who could it be that broke Tsuyu's heart?_

That wasn't a question to be made. That would change basically nothing, yet everything at the same time.

Uraraka caught herself wondering about it from the moment she discovered the disease to the moment Tsuyu finally agreed to go with her to the hospital. On one hand, if she knew who the person in question was, she could work up a way to get Tsuyu away from them. Maybe the distance could amend her feelings and cure her friend from her love disease.

On the other hand, thinking about the person with whom Tsuyu was in love made her strangely sad inside.

Tsuyu was dying because of them, so it was a normal reaction. It hurt her to think about her friend suffering.

So deeply, so deeply.

"It looks like a _fleur-de-lis_," the doctor told them, watching the exam image carefully.

"The kind of flower makes a difference?" Tsuyu asked, careful. The doctor nodded, placing the exam back over the table.

"It could grow faster or slower depending on the specimen," she explained, pointing to the flower silhouette on the image. "You see how shallow the roots are? If you had a daisy, it would be everywhere by now."

"I… see…" the frog heroine murmured. Uraraka placed a hand over her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly as she faced the doctor.

Could be worse, they had said. Could, indeed.

"We'll be taking tests to state the exact flower. It may help in selecting a medicine," the doctor continued, typing on the computer, probably preparing the request for another exam. "It will not cure you, but can retard the growth of your plant and give you time to either settle things with your partner or prepare for the surgery."

Tsuyu refused to take the surgery.

Uraraka couldn't blame her. She wouldn't want to, was she in her place. To take the flowers out through surgery meant to have the memories of a loved one taken from inside, and it would be painful. Although, ironically, _the love_ was painful too. A no-win situation, as Yaoyorozu had once described.

They got back home that day in dead silence.

.

.

It was difficult to talk nowadays. Uraraka would always come up with foolish topics, from the best nailbrush brand to the sex appeal of her new action figure. Now, though, she couldn't bring herself to start a foolish conversation. Everything she thought to say just made her chest squeeze and hurt.

Soon Tsuyu wouldn't be there anymore. If nothing changed, she would be alone, incapable of saving the one person that needed her the most in spite of her heroine title.

_What a failure._

She never was strong, she knew that from the start. Strength wasn't a possession, but something to build, and she worked on it as years passed.

She could stumble and fall. The errors were part of the way. They were part of the growing prospect, she would tell children, she would tell _herself_.

There were some errors that she couldn't afford to make, though.

Losing Tsuyu was one of them.

.

.

She laid there at midnight, staring at her ceiling, reminiscing their years together. She got up, sort through their memorabilia stored in her closet, pick their cheerleader costumes; her first hero weapon; old books that Tsuyu lent her and she always said she would read later; pictures of their school friends, of their teams in the agencies.

Her eyes lingered in every photo, every arm thrown over Asui's shoulders. Who could it be? Who could it be that enlaced Tsuyu's heart, gave her the _lis_ seed? Who was the one taking her away from Uraraka, whose chest hurt so much?

She was alone. She was weak.

(Sometimes she would admit to herself that she was crumbling, clawing, suffocating; sinking underwater, so far away from reach, so far away from the ones who needed her.)

(She would think of Deku. Framed pictures, smiles and a tombstone.)

(She wasn't the one who needed help.)

(She wanted to ask for it, though.)

.

.

(She didn't.)

.

.

The rainy season was about to end when she was called for a trip mission.

Four days, they had said, were plenty to investigate the criminals spreading in Sapporo. White Word, her partner, held her shoulder and told her she was a mess and she had to pull herself together.

That wasn't a lie. Ochako knew, deep down, that she was a mess. It was to be expected when she couldn't find joy in anything for weeks now. Every moment out of home was filled with fear for Tsuyu's wellbeing when she was away, and every moment by Tsuyu's side was dreadful with her condition worsening slowly.

Uraraka felt terrible and she knew she didn't have the right to. Tsuyu was the one who had every reason to be bad, but she was taking her daily life as usual.

Tsuyu was _so strong_.

She accepted the mission, prepared a small bag and parted from Asui.

Four days were longer than expected.

The time spent on the mission was almost like a life jacket — Uraraka felt like she could float and breathe for the first time in _so long_. She was absorbed in the adrenalin, unable to let her thoughts wonder anywhere else. The first three days were for observation and planning, while they would strike only in the fourth.

It didn't go as planned.

The villains were aware of their arrival somehow and prepared a trap of their own, taking her team on the second day.

To put it simply, blood was shed. More than she could feel comfortable with, but there was so much she could do when she left the hospital with a broken wrist next morning, all bandaged up from small cuts and scratches. She put on a surgical mask, but it didn't prevent the reporters at the entrance of the hospital from recognizing the gravity heroine, what led to a series of questions that she kindly avoided.

Back to her hotel room, Uraraka locked the door and slid her back along it until she reached the ground. Her arm hurt as hell and she felt just _so_ tired emotionally, physically. It was as if she hadn't slept for weeks now.

(Maybe she hadn't. Not really.)

She was so tired of feeling down. Nothing picked her interest, nothing filled her with desire to get up each morning. She had the money, she had the perfect job, yet she herself had nothing.

A disaster as a heroine, losing friends, losing Tsuyu. Each and every day she was farther and farther, while Uraraka couldn't do much more than squirm in frustration, in self deprecation.

She felt sick, she concluded, placing the good hand over her bandaged temple. She had an insistent migraine, pulsing lively and painfully with each breath, each sound, the clinical light of the hospital, the rinsed and shiny corridors, the whispers, the silent sobs, the tension.

Suffocating. It was like suffocating.

She almost jumped when she heard the buzzing of her phone. Forgotten over the nightstand in the silent mode, it moved around with the vibrations of a call. Groaning, she stood up, walking in the darkness until she reached her bed, hitting an ankle lightly. The phone stopped buzzing and when she picked it up, narrowing her eyes from the light, it registered a total of twenty seven missed calls.

Unblocking it, Uraraka sighed deeply when she rolled through the list and Tsuyu's name popped up at least ten times. Something squeezed inside her, uncomfortable, heavy, clogging her throat and sending shivers down her skin, and Ochako pressed the button to call back.

It ringed for barely a pair of seconds before Tsuyu picked it up.

"Ochako-chan!" she croaked from the other side, the voice rough. Uraraka's lips trembled as they parted to reply, but Tsuyu interrupted her before she even could: "Are you okay? I saw the news last night, but they just announced the heroes would go to the local hospital and I heard no word about you until half an hour ago! You looked… You're…"

Uraraka's chest hurt. Her heart clenched as much as her fingers around the phone. She felt so, so lonely.

Tsuyu sobbed on the other side.

"I was almost buying a plane ticket to Sapporo. I was about to… I don't know, I thought of calling Kaminari, he lives there now, right? I thought of calling your parents, I thought of travelling there, I couldn't stop thinking and, at the same time, nothing could be done. You're— _You're fine_, right? Tell me you are."

"I don't know," Uraraka whispered. Her arm pulsed with pain, her head pulsed with pain, her heart pumped pain through her veins. Tsuyu was worried about her, in spite of Tsuyu's condition, she thought of travelling and watching over Uraraka. "I just… Can I… call you later?"

"W-What? Ochako-chan, what's going on?" Tsuyu asked, perplexed, sounding heartbroken. The brunette pursed her lips, imagining the expression the frog heroine could be making right now, and it hurt.

"I don't know," she told her, in all honesty.

She let the phone go, watching it fall over the mattress. Her chest hurt too much. She stood up, goosebumps traveling over her skin in every place the clothes kissed her. She took a step to the bathroom, then the pain was too much, and she ran.

Hunching over the toilet, she coughed down, pained. One, two times, desperate, she needed to breathe so much, so much, so much.

When she opened her eyes, a pair of purple petals was floating on the water.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, _no_.

.

.

Who could it be?

Who could it be that broke Tsuyu's heart?

Who could it be that was taking her away from Ochako?

Who could it be that Tsuyu loved, when Ochako was falling for her?

.

.

That was a misunderstanding, she concluded later, boarding the plane back to Tokyo.

She had been in love from such a long time. Every warm meal would make her trip. Every gentle hand helping her pull the zipper of her Uravity costume made her waver. Every smile welled up in her heart.

Ochako had been falling for a long, long time. She just realized so late.

Too late.

.

.

She was such a hypocrite from getting hurt when Tsuyu hid her illness.

Uraraka just couldn't bring herself to tell her. Not when the lilac petals multiplied, not when the result of Tsuyu's exam came.

They called it water hyacinth, a pretty lilac and white flower that grew in the surface of water, the roots deep down the river. A medicine was prepared for Tsuyu, who stood the same, still, a little bit more talkative than before.

Ochako closed up.

That was so selfish, yet she couldn't just pretend nothing happened. The petals increased each day, painful, making it harder to breath. She had to accept the reality: she would either forget about her best friend, or die the lonely death of love.

The love that blossomed in her chest took the space of everything else. She dreamt about it each night, and some were the scariest nightmares, that got her waking up screaming.

That was one of those nights.

She knew it was a dream. There was just no way Midoriya would appear in that otherwise. They were close to the Mitsuru building complex, shattered glass everywhere, the faceless villain reigning over them like a god. The sky was greenish, a sick color spreading till the horizon and mixing with the destruction around them. Midoriya was breathing heavily, exhausted, and murmured instructions.

The explosion came next, she could remember that explosion. Her chest ached, the back burnt, it was so difficult to breathe, to form coherent answers. She looked up, hearing her name being called.

Midoriya was there, kneeling over the debris, his back facing her. He looked around, pale like a statue, almost lifeless. He was lifeless, indeed, she reminded herself. Her ears buzzed as he murmured something, and she couldn't hear him, never would.

Coughing.

White gloves turning crimson.

They were back in that bathroom. Tsuyu was hunched over, pulling entire flowers out of her mouth, pilling it up over the sink. The lilac petals were red, all over the marble and dripping to the floor.

_Stop_, Ochako wanted to say. Her lungs hurt too much, her back was on fire, she couldn't pull the words out, sticking to her tongue like mud. Never to be told, to touch the light of reality.

She was never strong. Strength was something that she would work to reach, and yet, after saying so many times that she would embrace each challenge, Ochako knew she was hiding.

She breathed deeply, desperate. It wasn't real, wasn't, she wanted to wake up, she told herself over and over, and her heart was almost exploding out of the chest when she finally did, sitting up on the bed and screaming to the top of her lungs.

Tsuyu surged from the corridor soon after, the voice wavering, just like in her dreams. "Ochako-chan?" she asked, walking inside the room as Ochako sobbed slightly under the covers. The rainy season had ended, but it was raining outside, the sound flooding the room through the thin window. "Ochako-chan, what's wrong?"

"I'm scared," Ochako answered, though she shouldn't. She shouldn't be the victim here, yet she let the words spill from her lips like a waterfall. "I had a nightmare about Deku-kun."

"Oh, Midoriya-chan," Tsuyu whispered, and Uravity could feel the movement of the mattress when she kneeled down at the other side, settling beside the brunette. "It's scary, still, I see."

"No," she interrupted, shaking her head, even though she couldn't be seen in the darkness. A thunder sounded from afar. "It's not that he's… I remember him bleeding and… I'm scared I'm going through it again, you mix in, I can't stop the dreams."

"_I_ mix…"

"You appear there, the petals, the death. Tsuyu-chan, it's happening again."

"It's… I am…" Tsuyu tumbled over the words, sounding stressed. Then, after a second, she sighed, and the sound was so unlike her that Uraraka trembled under the covers. "I am causing you pain, ain't I?"

"Tsu… _No!_" she exclaimed, sitting up and reaching for Tsuyu's hand. Her skin was cold, colder than it should, as if she had been outside. It could be the illness. It could be death coming. "You didn't do anything wrong, I just…"

"I know it, Ochako-chan," Tsuyu interrupted, the voice quiet, so small, void of feelings. The resignation laced her every word and her hand didn't squeeze Uraraka's in return. "I know I've been hurting you this whole time."

"What? You're not hurting me!" Ochako shook the hand she held, desperate. She wanted to see, to lock eyes with the frog heroine so that she could _understand_. "I'm the one that can do nothing for your sake, and I…"

"You don't, you _needn't_ do anything for me. Stop beating yourself up because of me, I don't want that."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's end this," Tsuyu pulled her hand away, the voice cold as a blizzard, hard as a stone. "I'm putting an end to this."

"Tsuyu-chan, wait!"

_Wait, wait, please, don't…_

Uraraka couldn't stop her.

The next morning, she was alone in her cozy, pink, black and green apartment.

.

.

It didn't take her more than a pair of weeks to start coughing blood with her petals.

No signal of Tsuyu whatsoever. No mails, no calls, no messages, no news on television. The frog hero vanished from Earth. Uraraka looked up at herself on the mirror, the hair a mess, the eyes shallow and framed by dark circles, droplets of blood on the lips.

She went and done it. _Great._

She wasn't supposed to hurt. She was supposed to help, to be the pillar, yet, there she went and drove Tsuyu away. Again and again and again she stood, just to fall, as years passed, as memories filled her chest with flowers.

Ochako didn't want to give up, though.

She knew that deep down, she was sure of it each morning she arrived at the agency and the team received her with news, with interesting opportunities to be useful. She didn't want to give up to the pain. She didn't want to give up to _hanahaki_. She didn't want to give up on Tsuyu.

But she _couldn't save_ Tsuyu.

Yaoyorozu stopped by her agency in the interval, perfect hair, the right words just at her reach. It was twilight and she leaned against Uraraka's desk, watching the sun disappear through the glass wall. "You can ask for help, you know?" she murmured.

Ochako stiffened, looking up to her nape. Her voice spread inside the empty agency like music.

"You can get over it again, Uraraka-san," looking over the shoulder, her dark irises met Ochako's. They were gentle, yet strong, like all those years ago when she held Todoroki through Deku's loss. "You just have to say it."

They all fell down. They all crumbled. Ochako knew, she just knew all the while that it was in her head and her head alone, yet, she couldn't fight it, she wasn't strong enough.

"It's scary," she answered, a first, hesitant truth. Yaoyorozu turned around, staring at the windows again, as the dark blue flooded the building.

"It always is. But you know what else is scary?"

Ochako let the question hang in the air for some seconds before Momo answered herself.

"To lose someone we love."

Oh, they knew so well.

"We're all scared, Uraraka-san. We're always scared of what is to come, and we're scared of losing our friends. So ask for help," her voice lingered in the air again. "We'd willingly do it for you, because we love you, Uraraka-san. And your friends will never give up on you."

She didn't press Uraraka for an answer. She didn't need to, anyways. The flower bloomed in her chest and Ochako sobbed, hiding her face in her hands as the night fell upon Tokyo, and Momo stood there, with her, hearing each desperate sob.

When she laid to sleep, Cheese taking half of the pillow, she dreamed of it.

She dreamed of Yuuei and classes and happiness. Of twenty friends, that increased to forty, that increased to one hundred and countless more. She dreamed of getting up in the morning, going down to the main hall and hearing Bakugou scream at Kaminari while Satou baked something for breakfast.

She dreamed of Mina holding a book, Romeo and Juliet, whining over it while Yaoyorozu sipped her mid-afternoon tea and Hagakure sorted through old magazines before throwing them away.

_Hanahaki, the disease of love_, Mina said. Ochako, hunched on the other couch with Tsuyu, looked up at her as she pouted. _They make it sound so painful in the book._

_It's death_, Yaoyorozu provided. _The death of a person is painful. It's sad._

_It's sad_, Uraraka agreed mentally, watching the golden light filtering through the long windows, giving life to the scene as it played.

_But it's still love,_ Mina added, frowning. _It's just love for each other, it's nothing bad, but all the characters shy away. Why can't they… if they confessed, they could solve it. But they always give up before trying._

_Confessing is not simple, _Jirou commented, landing beside Hagakure and joining the conversation. She had that serious, knowing expression to herself. _It's scary to think of what could become of you if you were rejected._

_But if they don't ask, they will never know, _Mina complained.

_Sometimes, we just prefer the doubt to the answer, _Jirou hummed. _But, in Hanahaki, I suppose you will die anyway, so why not… give it a shot?_

_It's bad, _Yaoyorozu interrupted again, solemn, _to give it up and regret it later. We're always scared of losing someone, but if we don't fight for that person, if we give up from the star, then we were meant to be heartbroken from the very beginning._

Uraraka dreamed of Deku.

Deku smiling in a photo beside a coffin, while his true self laid surrounded by cold narcissus. Bakugou held his hand with crimson eyes, which rose to greet her when she got closer. The same frown, the same marble features, carved deeply in each curve of his face. _Go awa_y, they would say. _Go away, I don't need you._

He held her hand when she got closer. His fingers trembled so much, betraying his demeanor, and she knew: as much as she was crumbling, _he_ was crumbling, _they_ were crumbling.

They loved her, she knew. To watch her suffer, it was painful, as much as Deku's loss was.

Yaoyorozu filled her heart with light, then, when she was blinded by her own insecurities. They would never give up on her, so she shouldn't give up on herself.

In the past, she tumbled down, she let herself fall as the fear engulfed her. She thought she learnt, she thought she would collect herself together and move on.

Ochako had to believe herself, _that_ was the lesson. She had to trust others, she had to ask for help, she had to let it pain when it pained.

And then, when she could stand over her feet, she would be able to pull Tsuyu up. Because where she lost in the past, where she let go in the past, she was not repeating herself, otherwise, the regret of giving up would pester her to her tomb.

She decided then, when she opened her eyes to her ceiling, flooding with the dim light of the morning.

She would face it.

.

.

She faced it.

She asked for her friends, she visited her parents, she scheduled doctor appointments. She surrounded herself with love, filling her chest, fighting back the roots. She let it hurt and poured her heart out, she took the exams and started taking her medication for _hanahaki_, she put her old stuff back in her closet and cleaned her apartment, preparing it for when Tsuyu got back.

It was hard. She was scared the whole time.

The doctor told her she had an _iris laevigata_, a purple specimen that grew in shallow water. What an irony, yet again, that she had a swamp flower inside her chest to represent her love for the frog woman. Her doctor didn't find it the least funny, as he explained the roots growth was very advanced, being it a type of flower that would be fatal quicker than usual.

That would explain why she started coughing blood so fast when Tsuyu hadn't gotten to this point even after months.

That meant, also, that she had little time left.

She messaged Tsuyu sometimes, called her, but it was to no avail. The frog heroine wouldn't answer any of it, leaving Uravity to plan other ways of getting in touch with her.

_Cheese misses you, _and no answer.

_I miss you, _and no answer.

_The pipes in the apartment got stuck and popped, it's flooding here, help, _and no answer.

That was a dumb strategy anyways. Tsuyu was scared, as was Uraraka, but she had some months, predicted her doctor. She would have some more time to get up, to think it through, to let Tsuyu know.

.

.

Maybe she didn't have all that time in the end.

Their lives were built in danger, she had forgotten. That's what Yaoyorozu meant when she said everyone was scared all the time. Of course they were, who knew what could come up to them when they faced death in a daily basis?

Somehow, she tended to forget her job didn't give much space for stuff like _take your time_.

It was the last month of fall. The cold was coming and Uraraka's costume was so thin it made her shiver, even though it was equipped with internal heat.

The cold came through when the front was sliced by her enemy.

She laid there, over debris, trying to assimilate what was happening. Her chest ached, but that was a constant for months now. Iris took her inside out, burning in her lungs, reminding her with each breath of the unresolved business she had. It wasn't the flower.

This aggressive, bitter pain, it wasn't her love.

Maybe she didn't have all that time, she thought, frightened. Too late, too late, too late, too late.

She tried so hard. She fought it! She fought the sadness, she fought her insecurities, she fought the voice inside telling her to give up. She took up the challenge, head on, prepared her strategy and went for it. She embraced the flaws and searched for knowledge, for growing up.

It would still leave a bitter taste to her mouth.

(Tsuyu still didn't know.)

(In spite of her fight, she hadn't told her yet. She was just back over her own feet and she wanted to tell her face to face and let it crumble.)

(Uraraka would lose anyways, but she could hold Tsuyu's hand and help her face her own pain, conquer the person she loved.)

(That was how much Ochako loved her.)

.

.

Apparently,_ iris laevigata_ meant love sadness.

What an irony, again and again and again, Uraraka thought, sighing with a restrained laugh. That disease was meant to be ironical, probably. Love blossomed in her chest — a gentle, pure bud that, with time, clogged up her lungs to death.

The silent mourning, the lonely pain of silence, the longing and the fear laced in purple petals, pleasant scent. Maybe her love had always been silent and painful.

She was drowning.

What a shame she couldn't make it bright and pretty this time.

.

.

She saw Tsuyu again.

In a hospital bed, lightheaded and probably with medicine in her bloodstream, the first thing Ochako saw when she opened her eyes was the dark mess of Tsuyu's locks to her left.

Big, ebony eyes stared at her, and the rough voice reached her ears before she could even register what was happening. "_Ochako-chan!_"

"Tsuyu…" she whispered in return, feeling dizzy. She blinked a couple of times. "Tsuyu-chan?"

"Yes," Tsuyu answered, and suddenly there were hands in Uraraka's, holding her palm gently, squeezing it in a way that she had been missing _for weeks_. "It's me, Ochako-chan."

"Oh."

She felt weak. It was hard to assimilate, but Tsuyu probably was anxious, because she started talking again nervously: "The nurses said your condition is stable, that your wound was stitched, and you would make it just fine. They said you had a concussion and lost blood, but everything was in order now. They said… you have a flower. I-in your lungs."

Oh.

Ochako couldn't quite concentrate. She watched as tears welled up to Tsuyu's eyes, going down in small droplets. "They said you're dying from it."

_No,_ Uraraka wanted to say. _Don't._

"Ochako-chan," her voice failed, heartbroken, and Ochako's heart shattered too. "_I'm so sorry._ I'm so sorry I left you like…"

"It's you," she interrupted.

Because, of all the things she wanted to say when she saw Tsuyu again, it was the one that pulled everything aside, that filled her chest, made her heart squeeze, comfortable, fluttering squeeze of _love_.

"This flower is yours, Tsuyu-chan."

Asui's mouth hanged open. She stared wide-eyed at Uravity, then, suddenly, she broke into a coughing fit, standing up and running to a door to the side, probably the bathroom.

Startled, Uraraka sat up, trying to go after her, but dizziness held her back and her stomach ached. Groaning, she fell back on the mattress, hearing Tsuyu's wet coughing, pained sobs. She wasn't the one who could cure Tsuyu, that was obvious. Ochako just hoped she could save her friend with the little time she had left.

Tsuyu's head emerged from the bathroom door.

"It's gone," she said, clearing her trout in awe. "It's _gone_."

"W-what is gone?" the brunette asked, hesitantly.

"The flowers," Tsuyu provided, stepping out of the bathroom and slowly making her way back to Ochako's side. "I just threw all of them up. I feel, I feel clear."

Uraraka frowned. "But that would not be possible."

"Of course it would," the frog heroine denied, smiling softly to her as she sat down beside the bed, reaching for Uraraka's hand again, and her thumb stroke the skin fondly. "It happens when the person you love return your feelings."

"The person… Uh." Uraraka shut up then, in a loss.

That couldn't possibly mean what she thought it meant.

"It means exactly what you think it does."

"Wait, I said it out loud?" she asked, watching in horror as Tsuyu nodded.

She had a soft smile on her lips, the face flushed, cozy, familiar. Uraraka felt the heat spreading inside her chest — maybe it was the flowers withering, giving space to so much love.

She breathed in, hearing Tsuyu's laugh.

Her lungs felt clogged still, but it didn't hurt this time. Her ears, they could catch every fond touch in Tsuyu's voice.

She had been underwater. Far away, somewhere she couldn't let anyone down, somewhere she could pretend she wasn't hurting. Just like the flower in her chest, just like the flower in Tsuyu's chest, her love was born underwater, but bloomed outside, lively, colorful, where there was light.

Uraraka smiled and Tsuyu pulled one strand of chocolate hair behind her ear as she said: "Did you know that the water hyacinth means talkative?"

"Oh, that fit _so_ well," the hand on her ear lingered, cupping her cheek as Tsuyu leaned down, meeting her sentence with her lips.

She was drowning no more.

.

.

_It's bad, _Yaoyorozu had said that day, _to give it up and regret it later. We're always scared of losing someone, but if we don't fight for that person, if we give up from the star, then we were meant to be heartbroken from the very beginning._

Tsuyu had peaked at Uraraka, sitting by her side, the face held captive to the gown of afternoon light taking over the hall.

She could have it, though, she had decided that day. Even if it wasn't passion, she could still be part of Uraraka's life and support the person she loved. Tsuyu wanted her to always smile, and for that she would give up everything, even her own heart.

.

.

Many years later, when they marry, she discovers, surprised, that she regrets nothing.


End file.
